


But I love you until the end of time.

by enormouseffort (orphan_account)



Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: But I couldn't wait, Endless-loop theory, F/M, Ghost!Jamie, I was going to wait and post it on actual Halloween, Moulin Rouge! title because why not?, i like it a lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-11-08 23:38:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20843930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/enormouseffort
Summary: With her husband constantly away not long after their marriage, Claire lives mostly alone in their house at the Scottish Highlands. However, she is not exactly alone and there is quite more to this house and her future -or is it her past?- than meets the eye.Endless-loop theory and ghost!Jamie with a wee spin.





	But I love you until the end of time.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Happy Halloween (month)! 
> 
> I have tried to put my spin on the endless-loop theory, which turned out to be a ghost story because of the infamous ghost!Jamie scene. Think of it as one of the many ways their story could happen, since, if we consider that they live in an endless-loop, their stories are doomed to be repeated, although a few things may change. It’s my first time writing a story with ghosts and all, so it was a really fun writing experience for me. Also, the title comes from Come What May from Moulin Rouge, listen to it if you haven’t already, I think you’ll like it and it sort of fits them in this story -especially the version of it at Finale (come what may) from the Original Broadway Cast (and not just because Aaron Tveit sings like an angel and they play a bit of Lady Marmalade at the end).   
ps. I do not read the lyrics like in the song. Alright, alright, I do and follow it with me, singing at the top of my lungs, COME WHAT MAY, COME WHAT MAY, I WILL LOVE YOU UNTIL MY DYING DAY!   
ps2. This got a tad too long, I think it’s the longest one piece I have ever written. However, I tried to break into chunks and chapters, but it simply flowed better (in my opinion) as a one-shot.  
ps3. I know that this fic would be great for actual Halloween, but I couldn’t wait that long to post this baby :)

##  _ **But I love you until the end of time.** _

Claire and Frank Randall had not been married long, just for a few months after the war has ended. He had charmed her when they met at the front and she tended his wounds when he was hurt in a defensive training for the intelligence group. He seemed to love her or at least told her so. After she lost her uncle in the war, he was a safe haven for her. So, when he asked her to marry him, she said yes. Hoping she wouldn’t be alone anymore and could finally settle down somewhere.

But she was alone, once more. That is how it has been often for Claire, ever since she and her husband moved from England to the highlands of Scotland. He was a professor and always away in Inverness teaching, sometimes spending the night with her in Lallybroch, and more often than not at the city. 

She was alone until _he_ finally showed himself to her. 

Her husband’s reason for settling the house and hers were entirely different. Claire wanted the space, the smell of the field, the beauty of the place. And he wanted the history, wanted to know everything about this place and about the people who lived there. He first heard of the place in a few reports found in eighteen-century records of his six-times great grandfather Jonathan Wolverton Randall and found that it belonged to his family after he took it forcefully from the original owners in apid of a debt to the crown. The Randall’s had tried to sell it for the first hundred or so years, but, unable to do so, just left the place alone. Something about the place pulled the long late Randall there and was pulling him too.

However, not all is what it seems. For the quiet house with beautiful landscapes appeared to haunted by a few vengeful spirits over the years, who now decided to slightly torment the new residents.

It had begun when she was with him at the house and moved on to whenever she was alone too. But they were different events. Wherever Frank was at the house, the atmosphere was dark and gloomy, books fell off the shelves and it was always cold, regardless of how much fire in the fireplace or how hot the heating system was. When she was alone, it was cold, yes, but more of the cold of a tormented and sad soul, not an angry one. 

Frank muttered about it but seemed to pay no notion to those who lived nearby and accused him and his wife of disturbing the spirits of the house, stating that it was none of their business.

_“Dinna mess wi’ things ye dinna ken” said Mrs Graham, the former housekeeper, who visited Claire a week after she moved in. When she did, the cold disappeared and the place was calm once more, “He doesna like to be disturbed, especially in the Laird’s room.”  
_

_“Who?” Claire has asked, inching closer and closer to the older woman, who looked at her with kind eyes.  
_

_“Laird broch tuarach,” she laughed, “who else? his Lady’s soul lived here wi’ him but we havena felt her in twenty or so years now.”  
_

_“Who was him? and her?” Claire questioned further. _

_“The rightful Laird and Lady of this place until it was taken from them, along wi’ their life.” She began and would tell Claire the whole story, but was interrupted by Frank.  
_

_“This house is just old and falling apart,” he spoke harshly, “we are thankful for all your service to this house, but we’ll be asking you to take your leave.”   
_

Claire, when her husband was away, liked to wander about in the house, seeing what needed to be seen and, at every piece of history she found, she grew more and more curious about this place and the history. It was like she was seven years old again, wandering with her uncle and discovering all the secrets about the older times, including the mysteries and mystical aspects of everything. But she was not a little girl anymore. Her uncle was dead and she was not afraid of ghosts. 

In fact, she told him so one evening as she laid restlessly in the bed of a room that had not seemed to change in two hundred years. She swore she heard a chuckle behind her, but would not say for sure.

She was not in the Laird’s bedroom, that one was falling to pieces and ribbons and Frank wasn’t to keen on restoring it, and she had never been there. His plan was to sell the house and get him and his family rid of it as soon as they could. But, with house in England destroyed in the war, this was a place to live, at least until things were settled.

Or so he had told her.

As she was readying herself to sleep on a cold night, a book fell from the bedside table and she sat up defiantly on the bed. “I’m not scared of you, so just leave me and my husband alone,” she paused with each word, steading her own heartbeat to the words in an effort to keep calm. It was the first time that this ghost had done anything like this when she was at the house alone, for, aside from the cold, he reserved his anger towards Frank. She wondered if it was because the house belonged to Frank’s family after the men died and she was a Randall now.

“Ye ken I can hear yer heart beat fast and smell yer fear, no?” a voice spoke from the door of the bedroom. it was the first time she had ever heard it and his accent was thick and voice hoarse from disuse, but there was a lightness in his tone, not said to scare her but to make light of the situation.

She turned to look at him but could see nothing. Which did not mean she could not feel his presence, both strong and weak near her. “You’re real, then?” she asked, inching closer to the sound of his voice.

“As are ye.” He spoke and she continued following the sound of his voice all the way to old Laird’s bedroom. _Why was he leading her there? “mo nighean donn” _she heard him mutter as a wind she did not feel anywhere else moved near her head, moving her messy curls. Claire thought she also heard a _finally_ but was not sure. _Finally what? Would he kill her to satisfy his anger?_

The place was dusty and smelled old. The wallpaper, once a gorgeous rich blue from what she had been told, was now falling apart from the years of abandon. Still, the room gave her a sense of security, like one gets from the bedroom in which love was poured over and over again and one’s happiness was made.

“Who are you?” She was seeing him then, a faint reflection on a dirty and old mirror on the wall. She could not see him properly, just his eyes, dead as him. But even then, she could see a small fire behind them, as bright as day, so familiar and yet so unknown. She moved closer to the mirror.

“I’m behind ye.” He spoke and she turned but saw nothing. He chuckled then and coughed to hide it. “Sorry, I forgot ye canna see me, _Sassenach_.”

“You didn’t answer my question.” She spoke and he looked hurt as if a knife had crossed his heart and shattered it to pieces.

“Ye dinna remember me?”

“How could I?” she inched closer and closer. _He knew her? but how?_

“Sorry, mistress, ye reminded me of someone.” He spoke and she sat on the small stool in front of what looked to once had been a beautiful dressing table. Sitting there felt somewhat right, and she was unsure of why she was ever scared of going there in the first place. Then, she remembered she was talking to none less than a ghost.

“Who, exactly?”

“My wife.”

“Oh.” She did not know what to say. Did she really look like a Scottish lady from two hundred years ago? “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I’m already married.” she joked, lifting her hand with Frank’s ring and thought she heard him take a sharp intake of breath. _Did he really think she was his wife? didn’t he know that so much time has passed? or that her body and his laid peacefully -or so she hopped- on the graveyard near the property?_

She never knew their names, obviously. The place was battered and had seen better days. Just a few inscriptions remained when she looked at with Frank. She was pulled to the place felt there the same coldness from the house but, at the same time, as she kneeled on the ground and stared at the two twin graves, she felt a warmth, a comforting presence of someone who wanted her near. The inscriptions were simple, just the letters of their names, side by side: _JAMMF _and_ CEBF, with a_ few words written in what she thought was Gaelic. She did not tell him, or anyone else’s that the woman’s three first initial matched her own perfectly, the only difference being that hers had an _R_ at the end while the mysterious eighteen century Lady had an _F_.

“I ken that, _Sassenach.” H_e chuckled, trying to ease the atmosphere of the room. It was the first time he dared to speak with her. She was his wife, even if she did not know it yet, even it had not happened for her yet. He wanted to add that her marriage to him would predate hers with the boring Englishman -Randall’s brother seed- for two hundred years, wanted to gather her to him and kiss her, to love her for all eternity. But, most of all, he was determined to stop the future he knew so well from happening.

He had lived this before, and if the future happened again, then he would be doomed over and over again in his suffering. And so would she. He would warn her this time, he had the chance now. It was the only explanation he could conjure for his attachment to the house, their inability to move on.

That, and the fact that she was still here, that she had come back to this time. All in order to die again by the hands of Randall. All to live it over and over again.

“I am James Alexander Malcolm Mackenzie Fraser, your servant.” He spoke each name slowly with nothing short of devotion to her. “But ye can call me Jamie if ye’d like.”

“Claire Elizabeth Beauchamp Randall,” she extended a hand to him and he tried to take it, but his hand just crossed through her own, never touching, never feeling. 

He recalled the first time ever saw her when he was alive. She was beautiful, patching up his shoulder in a cabin full of highlander men and she showed no fear to them, only in her eyes, eyes he could read like books and never tire of them. Eyes that held his very heart from the first day.

She had a fire in her eyes that were familiar and yet foreign to him. She was a _Sassenach_, an Outlander, that much was clear to him and in more ways than one. 

He loved her then, and loved her in their rushed marriage, their marriage of protection to her and in ways to him, and when she told him the truth of who she really was, of where and when she had come from.

_“I’m from the future,” she spoke after he rescued her from a witch trial. He knew that there was something different about her, in the way she moved, talked and seemed to know him and his home as if she had lived there before. The truth was, she had lived there before. And had met his ghost. He was chilled to the bone when she told him the tale._

_That she met him there, his ghost and that she fell through the veil of time when her husband took her to stones to try and kill her. It scared him, not only what would happen to him, but also to this woman he loved more than life itself -enough to defy the lines between this world and the next._

_She told him that she had never seen his face, never knew what this ghost looked like, but that she knew, as soon as she felt his presence in that cabin, that it was him. that he had told her to stay away, to not go to him and how she had gone, in the spur of a moment, in the blink of an eye. And how much she did not regret a single thing. _

_She told him she loved him and his world was bright and he told her that she was a gift from heavens to him. Promised that he would change things, make sure that Randall did not hurt them again. He told her he loved her and he swore on his life to change things._

_He failed her. And he would not do it again. _

_xxx_

She had been talking to him - a bloody ghost that felt more alive to her than her husband, than anyone else she had ever met- for weeks now. Every single night when her husband was away, she would talk to him in the laird’s bedroom and he would tell her stories of his life growing up there, of his parents, siblings, uncles and some about his fearless and headstrong wife. Never about his death or his wife’s and she never asked. It just didn’t seem right. But she told him of her, of how she was bored to death in that house, with nothing to do after being useful as a nurse in the war for so long. He told her that he knew it, had seen her. And every night she could sense that he was stronger, more and more alive. She began seeing glimpses of him and he was startled that she could do so as if she wasn’t supposed to.

“So I can talk to a ghost but not see him?” she laughed when he looked thoroughly terrified that she pointed at his crooked nose. “What happened to it anyway?” She reached out and he did not flinch when her hand floated across his face, for he couldn’t feel anything physically. She couldn’t either and began a hearty laugh that consumed them both. It felt simply right for her, to laugh with him. And for him, like a missing piece, a sound so often remembered and dreamed about that had finally reappeared, like a bird whose song calmed even the most tormented soul. 

“I got hit by a British patrol when I was arrested, for a crime I did not commit, mind you.” He never told her that it was a Randall. It just was not the time, not when she trusted him but did not love him, not when he was still deciding if this time he should tell her that her husband -the one of the future who would become her past- would try to kill her in order to release himself from the curse attached not to the house but to this whiskey-eyed sassenach. Not when he was still unsure if said husband would do it this time, for if he did not she would live in her own time, not on his and not die with him there. After all, she had seen him this time. _Maybe, it can go a different way._

He was torn, really. If he tells her, then he would have a chance to protect her from this Randall but would throw her in the arms of death by the hand of the very other. Or, maybe, she would go away from this Randall and from the stones that led her to him. 

_Aye, he could live the rest of his day awaiting judgement alone if it meant she would live a long and peaceful life. For her, he would do anything and he would love her until the end of time itself._

A whole year has passed and he found that he was more and more enamoured with her every day, even if he knew that only meant the beginning of the end. It was as if he was still alive, even for a short while when he talked to her, told her all he could about his life and cherished on the time he never truly had with her before but had now. Jamie could see how she was not happy with Randall and, although upset to see her upset, he was happy. He flinched away every time Randall touched her, turned on his back and went to the cemetery or the Priest’s hole, unable to see _her _with _him. But every time she smiled at something he said, every time she called him when she was alone, every time she looked out to him, even when Randall was near her, then his heart soared high and he allowed himself to dream. _

He had a chance this time as well. 

He asked her once, as they sat together in the Laird’s bedroom (their bedroom), if she felt it too, this connection. He was testing the waters, so to speak, had done it before when they were just newlyweds, many years ago. She smiled at him, just as she did then, and told him that no, this was different from anything before. “And not because you’re the only ghost I talked to.”

She laughed and he wanted more than anything to kiss her senseless, threading his fingers in her curls (curls he knew more than he knew himself even after years of being alone) or in the small of her back, see the goofy and flirtatious smile that always appeared afterwards. He wanted to feel alive, but he was doomed to not touch her, to not be able to feel her skin against his own. _Would she act the same way now? Would she love him every time they repeated history? _He knew that he would.

She reached out to him and he went as well, unable to stop himself. Their lips nearly brushed, but she fell forward, not being able to touch him and he smiled, he smiled brightly for the first time ever since they were parted again. She seemed guilty after a moment and he apologized and so did she. He gave her the space she needed, even if his soul ached for her. She did not pull him completely away either but did not try to kiss him again, for she knew she would not be able to feel him. Although, he knew that the pull between them only got stronger and stronger with time.

It was nearing the beginning of May and he had to make a choice. Thankfully, the choice was half made to him by Claire herself. She was walking in the house and found the priest hole and saw a trunk there.

He could not help the sharp inhale of breath when she opened the trunk and saw an old dress, her own wedding dress, and his own plaid worn at the happiest day of his life. She touched it, smelled it and through the years old of dust could recognizer her own self in it. Could recognize them. Could feel the connection, the love, could see that it was her and him. But could not understand it.

“Why?” she whispered. “Why do I feel like I know this place and yet I have never been here before.” When he did not answer, she continued. “What happened here? what happened to her?” she gestured to the old trunk that had been moved there by his sister Jenny when it was ordered by Randall that no belongings left the house (only the people that had been lucky to have remained alive could leave).

“She’s the love of my life.” He spoke softly, inching closer and sitting down. He thought she looked somewhat hurt at his words, most likely not knowing fully that she and his wife were the same women. “Our belongings were moved here, things our souls held meaning to.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Dinna be. It’s not yer fault, never could be.”

“It was Frank’s ancestor, no?” She asked and inched closer, finger itching to wipe the tears away from his face.

“Randall wanted this house, this place, these walls.” He gestured to around them “and he got them. Seems he got stuck wi’ me in the process no?”

“Your wife, she must have meant a lot you. Why aren’t you with her? or she with you?”

“She is.” He answered, “she was wi’ me for years, we both were here.” He smiled softly, “we used to play pranks on those who lived here, made them miserable.” He was chuckling now as if he was telling her a joke only she would understand. “Christ! we would annoy that Randall bastard until he fled from this place to ne’er come back!”

“Really?”

“Aye.” He tried to catch a breath after laughing hard -in the way he could only do with her by his side- and continued, “We once threw every book off from the shelf, turned every piece of furniture around and clapped every pot together. We ne’er laughed so much.”

“Isn’t she upset that you’re with me here now? that we nearly kissed?”

“Are ye?” he dodged her question away -or so it seemed so to her.

“No, not really no.” She looked deep into his eyes and ran a hand throught her own curls. The pain in his eyes was killing her slowly, more than anything she wanted to wipe his pain away. And to imagine he felt it all alone for quite some time now. “Where is she now?”

“Then she isna upset either.” He began and decided to continue, for there was no point in hiding it anymore. Tomorrow, in the first of may of ninety forty-six, the bastard Randall would take her to stones for a picnic as he had asked, and she would flee from his blade straight to the past and all would repeat itself. “She and ye are the same person, _mo graidh.”_ His voice was quiet, trying to calm the raging storm within. “Yer my wife, will be, ye were parted form me to be born again, to repeat it all over time and time again,” he finished sadly.

“Impossible.”

“Then how is it that ye knew this place, knew all of this?” he rose his voice slightly, “my wife had travelled through time to meet me and she is ye, I ken it as I ken my own heart.”

“I -I can’t believe you, this makes no sense.” She stood up, pacing around.

“We are doomed to repeat history, you and I. It has been so -will be so.” He rose from his place on the floor. “Ye’ll come to me and I’ll love ye again and we’ll die and ye’ll be parted from me once more to be born again as my soul waits for ye. It will only stop when we stop _him _from _killing us_, or at least that’ll give us time to _live_ together.”

“Black Jack Randall?”

He nodded and continued as if a hard decision was made. She might not believe in him now, but he could at least make her listen to him, do one thing for him. “If -if ye ever felt anything for me.” He looked straight into her eyes now, those whiskey eyes he loved and could be lost for days without end. “Please, dinna go tomorrow with yer husband, dinna follow him, stay safe, he’ll try to kill ye, run away from him.”

“Safe from who?” she began, “you lied to me all this time and Frank is going to try to kill me? He can’t kill an ant, much less his wife”

“He will, at least he was when ye first came to me,” he knew that she could see the truth in his eyes, hoped she could. He leaned closer to her and whispered, “if ye do go -for I ken ye well enough to ken that ye hardly do as yer told- tell me when ye get to me, when ye tell me yer tale, tell me about this and I’ll believe ye.”

“Darling! I’m home.” He heard Frank’s calling and she withdrew herself away from him and walked away, casting one last glance at him.

He could not leave the house, the property was his confinement. He only hoped they were not doomed to repeat history again. 

_xxx_

When the daylight came, Claire was still struggling with what to do. Could this ghost, this men she knew, this men she was growing feeling for, be telling her the truth? Could she really be his wife, born again only to travel back to him and repeat history over again?

When she walked up the hill towards craigh na dun, she knew it was not a lie. The same chill from the house was there, but Jamie was nowhere to be seen. And, right beside her, a man she did not know. Frank Randall had a distant look on his face, even more so as he pulled the knife from his messenger bag and she ran away, hiding behind a tree.

“It’s not personal, love,” he said, “but we need to break the curse, and the only way is to stop the cycle.” he continued, stepping closer and closer. “We need to get rid of the house, and blood must be spilt again to stop it, to stop you.”

She did not think, just followed her innermost instincts, as if she did not even have a thought, just ran straight to the tallest stone and touched it. She was doomed to repeat history then, but, as Randall had said, to stop the curse, you need to break the cycle, and she would be dammed if she did not try.

She had found him, after being nearly killed by her husband’s ancestor -her second husband as if she thought well, she would analyze that at least the record’s would show that Jamie was the first- and taken to a cabin by another man. She wondered who he was. He led her to Jamie and she felt like she could trust him. Could this be Murtagh, the godfather he spoke about, whom he owned having met his wife to?

His hair was tousled, his shoulder hurt, but he was real. Alive, breathing and feeling pain. She could touch him now. _He did not lie._

And he also did not appear to know her. But he looked at her in the road and in Leoch in the same way he looked at her in Lallybroch in her own time and she knew that his heart remembered her, his soul was pulled to her, even if his mind could not.

The days were rushed and scary, and she had to keep her mouth shut more than once when she talked to Jamie to avoid spilling out her secrets, her past and their future. But she knew that he knew two things: one, she was not telling him everything and two, there was not a soul who would deny the pull between them.

When given the chance, she married him, both to run away from Randall and for love. She never spoke to him about it, but knew that he could read her as easily as living as he did when he was dead. He kissed her passionately and she followed the same path, surrendering herself to him as he surrendered his own self to her. It was more than she could have imagined and she never felt more alive, ready to take on the world and defy time and death.

She had told him again, soon after their marriage, that what happened between them was unusual, that she felt it too, answering his question once more. She was feeling it just as much or maybe even more now than she did then in her own time. _Was it really her time? Was she meant to be there at all? Or here, with this husband? _

He loved her, regardless of who she was and what she was hiding. When she told him, he did not know what to say. She had just being accused as a witch and was babbling about future and curses and changing things. She was -will be- from the future and she had known him there, seeing his ghost. She babbled on and on about his home, recalling every detail she could in efforts to make him believe her. At last, she wrapped her arms around herself and sobbed that she was absolutely sorry that she had not heard him and ran away from Frank when she could. “Now because I came, you’ll die,” she sobbed in his arms.

He did the only thing he could do: hold her to him, place her in his lap and kiss the crown of her hand and the hand that held his ring. It always felt natural, touching her and now he supposed he knew why.

“We are doomed to repeat it.”

“We’ll never ken if we dinna try.”

“You had told me yourself that this had been going for as long as forever, most likely hundreds and hundreds of times. Why would it be different now?”

“I dinna ken.” he held her in his arms and kissed the crown of her head and her forehead. “But we need to try aye? for us.”

She knew what would happen and prayed that it gave them a chance. 

The days passed and they laid in Lallybroch now. It was October, which meant their death was nearer by the minute. On Christmas eve, seventeen forty-three, this bubble of peace would end. Regardless, she smiled as she entered the room, the first time seeing it as it was meant to be. She told him that she felt just as safe and happy here now as she did then.

“This room still stands? in yer time?”

“Yes, although it’s not as pretty and full of life.” She sat on a stool in front of the mirror, much like she had done before. It felt just as natural and right. _That is exactly where she belonged._

“There’s plenty of life here now,” he teased, drawing her closer to him and giving her an owlish wink that got her giggling in between kisses, the giggles turned to gasps as he kissed her neck and behind her right ear. _It felt more right than anything else in her life._

But, night always comes. 

“I don’t know why he wants this place so much, but he won’t stop until he gets it.” She had told him as they laid in bed, wrapped in nothing but each other’s embrace.

“I ken why.” Jamie sighed and pulled her closer to him. These past months ever since she dropped in his life out of the blue were pure bliss, but they both knew that darkness laid ahead in their path now. “There’s a map hidden somewhere here, leading to riches undescribed.”

“You think that is what he wants?”

“I canna see anything else, can I?”

“We can run away, us and everyone else who would follow.” she took his hand and held it between her own, placing her head on his chest, next to his heartbeat. _Alive. For now._

“How long have ye kent?” he asked, placing his hand in her still flat belly. The affirmation was to what she knew hung between them but both were aware of what he meant.

“You know?” He only smiled in response. “In the middle of all of this, you’ve kept track? of course, you did.” she felt her own smile grow as she kissed his chest.

“Has this happened? before I mean?” he asked, eyes a full mixture of happiness for the child (one dreamed often) and despair at the imminent loss. He stood up and walked away from the bed and into the window, unprepared to hear her response. 

“Not that I’m aware of, no.” She added and smiled as if finally understanding the words spoken almost automatically before. She tore herself away from the bed and threw her arms on his neck and he picked her up as she hooked her legs on his waist “This has not happened before! It didn’t happen!” He spun her around, smiling joyfully. _This was a chance._ “Unless you didn’t tell me this critical piece of information, Fraser.”

“Dinna think I’d hide from ye, _a nighean_.”

They laughed, smiled and loved each other throughout the night and when dawn came, they planned. Claire’s plan was good, easy, concise. “Find the treasure, take it and travel away. Anywhere.” However, the only problem was that not a single soul knew where the riches were hidden if they were there at all. 

Jamie vowed to look for it, try and find where his father had hidden the clue. He was running out of time. The month passed and on Christmas eve -tomorrow- Randall would come and Jamie would not be able to protect his wife. 

Jamie paced back and forth and taping his head in thought.

“Jamie.” she began, but he would not listen to her, so she tried harder and went up to him.” She was barely showing still and looked up at him, holding his gaze on her. “I don’t want to spend our last night in a rush, filled with fear and worry.”

“Aye.” 

The night was both long and unbearably short. They loved, and loved, and loved and cried for all that was lost and gained in the process.

“I wouldn’t change a thing just now. Even with what I know will come.” She sighed, “We’ll do it over and over again if we need to and I’ll love you until the end of time itself.”

He kissed her tears away and held her to him. “Ye should go, back to that thing, ye should live.”

“We live together or we die together, James Fraser.” 

Everyone in the house was asleep and no one besides the couple knew of the events that would most likely come on the following day -for it was them and only them who would lose their lives. When daylight came, the couple rose from their bead and Claire walked out to send him off, having promised him she would be in safety in the priest’s hole.

Jamie knelt before her, kissed her belly and vowed to her that he would do all he could. She knelt by him and kissed him amidst the tears. 

“Such a sweet sight.”

There, before Jamie Fraser was the man who haunted his nightmares since he appeared for the first time in Lallybroch years and years before. Who had hurt him, scarred him beyond words and who would try to kill him and his wife now.

“Why are you here?” Claire asked lamely, unsure of what to do. “If you want the treasure, then bugger off because we don’t know where it is.”

“Yes, you do. But don’t worry -better off _dinna fash _isn’t it what you barbarians say?” he sneered. “I’ll arrest you both for obstruction, maybe for some murder and then I’ll gather your property to pay for everything.”

“Nay, we dinna ken where it is.” Randall aimed at a pistol at Jamie “I swear on my life that I dinna ken.” He then moved it to point at Claire’s belly.

“Would you swear on hers?”

Just then, the flash of a horse came in the distance. Jamie took the opportunity to push Claire away from the gun and behind him as Randall turned to look. 

It was Murtagh, riding and coming to the house. There were bags on his saddle, three full bags and he slowed his pace when he approached the house.

The man was not one of many words, but when he spoke -more than Claire had ever heard from him- the red-haired men and curly-haired _Sassenach_ smiled brightly and defiantly. “I got what ye wanted. now leave my godson and his wife alone forever.”

Jamie looked at Murtagh and at Randall. He knew that his godfather had some notion of where the gold and riches would be hidden, and knew that it was his only chance. He and Claire had sent the man to look for it, begged him to and, most of all, to not tell either him or Claire where it was, for if they knew, then Randall would most likely use torture to gather the information from them.

Randall looked at the bags and Murtagh slid off the horse and threw them at Randall’s feet, opening one and showing what was inside. “That’s all o’ it. Now leave this house.”

Randall smiled, used to getting what he wanted. He did, this time, _but not all of it_, Murtagh thought. As the Englishman rode away (after taking -stealing- a wagon to properly carry the bags) Claire jumped into Jamie’s embrace and kissed him hard. When she pulled away from him, she ran to Murtagh and kissed his cheek, wrapping him in a tight hug. She could sense that he was uncomfortable, but he held her anyway and she pulled away with a smile.

“I cannot even begin to thank you.”

“Dinna fash, _a leannan,_” he began and Claire thought she could see a smile beneath his beard. “It appears that ye and wee Jamie were right, then.”

“Thank ye, _a goistead_, for trusting us.” Jamie spoke, gathering him in a hug of his own. “thank ye.”

“Ye’ll thank me later when ye help me wi’ the other bags.”

“Other bags?” claire whispered, shocked.

“Did ye really think I’d give that bastard all of that?” Murtagh laughed heartily.

_xxx_

A few months later, as the couple and their godfather sailed away to the colonies with some of the gold and riches that Murtagh had hidden -after a promise from Jenny and Ian that they would soon follow with their bairns after being left part of the money as well- Claire smiled as she tended to Jamie’s seasickness and felt their baby move for the first time. It was too soon for Jamie himself to feel it, but it showed her that all was well.

“Some days I cannae believe it myself, ye ken?” he said, wrapping his arms around her behind and caressing her bump. “that we created such a miracle together, such a beauty in the middle of chaos.”

“Thank you for believing in me.” She spoke, voice soft as she turned to look at him, into the eyes that held her heart and soul within them. “even when I didn’t believe in you when you told me.”

“Ach, dinna fash about that, aye?” he smiled and kissed the tip of her nose, then her eyelids, cheeks, jaw, chin and finally her mouth. “If ye had, then we wouldna be here, aye?”

“No, I don’t think we would.”

“Then I’m glad for once that ye wouldna do as yer told,” he laughed and picked her up in his arms, her legs hooking behind him as he led them to the small cot serving as a bed.

_xxx_

Twenty years later the couple smiled as they stood as a witness of the marriage of their first children, Faith and Fergus Fraser, twin children born after the arrival in the Colonies and the settling in what became known as Fraser’s Ridge.

The twins danced with their partners, Marsali Mackimmie and Thomas Hamilton, and the oldest Fraser’s kept remembering their own wedding years earlier, being more in love than ever. They shared a glance to their younger children, Brianna and William, who were two and five years younger than the twins.“I still can’t believe it sometimes, that we created such a beauty.” 

“Neither do I, _Sassenach_, I still wake up sometimes and think of it as a dream,” he kissed her then, adding with a smile, “then I see ye, and ken for sure.”

“Well, if you’re dreaming, then so am I.” She laughed “please don’t wake me, then.”

“We werena doomed to repeat it, after all, we tried and it worked.” he breathed against her ear, a secret between them and known only one other person -Murtagh, who smiled at the scene at the Ridge as he watched William Fraser dance with his wife Suzette.

“And if it all happens again, don’t give up on me.” Claire breathed and he kissed her thoroughly, not caring who saw and he smiled against her lips as he made a vow to her that he was sure to keep as much as any other made to the love of his life. 

“I will never give up on us, I’ll love ye until the end of time.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Meet me on Tumblr at http://maybeimdoingsomethingright.tumblr.com if you want to ;)


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